


Products of Diplomacy and Magic

by cassandrapentayaaaaas



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Domesticity, F/M, Fluff, I have a lot of feelings about these two as parents, Post-Trespasser, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 08:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12077109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandrapentayaaaaas/pseuds/cassandrapentayaaaaas
Summary: Some vignettes detailing the growing family of the ambassador and former inquisitor (my OC, Peter). Just a lot of light, domestic stuff.





	Products of Diplomacy and Magic

“Josie... Jo, look. Watch.”

Peter returns his grin to the baby girl that lays in his lap. Emmaline is just a tiny thing there; all of five months with little black curls, like those of her twin whose sleeping forehead Josephine now kisses. The former ambassador watches as Peter extends his index fingers--both human and mechanical. Emma grips them, firmly, like the reins of a horse. “Ready?” he asks the child. Josephine smirks.

Her husband bounces his fingers up and down to a beat: “Em-ma-line...” he chants. “Em-ma-line... Em-ma-line!” the baby giggles more and more with each repetition, and kicks both legs on her father’s downward motions. Josephine can’t help but grin as the two giggle at each other. Peter breaks his gaze for a moment to catch his wife’s. “Now watch,” he says, not breaking cadence. He continues chanting his oldest daughter’s name, but retracts his fingers. The baby continues to kick to the beat. “Em-ma-line, she’s amazing, isn’t she? Em-ma-line, she’s like a rhythmic genius. Em-ma-line, this is the best part--” Peter draws out the first syllable: “Eeeeeeeeeem-” Emma balls her tiny fists and sticks her legs out straight. Josephine has to stifle a deep laugh to keep from waking Adelaide as her other daughter pulls the silliest face; eyes open wide, lips pursed in a shocked ‘o’.

Peter laughs as he finishes the final beats a little faster, tickling Emma’s tummy as she kicks them out. Josephine feels her heart swell with pride in her little family. She is nearly brought to tears when Peter meets her eyes and says earnestly, “We made the  _best_ babies.”

* * *

It is late. So very late. Emmaline is already asleep, and so is Josephine. But true to the willfulness her father likes to think she’s inherited from her mother, Adelaide refuses to go down until she is absolutely ready. Lucky for the one-and-a-half-year-old, her papa is a night owl, too.

They sit in the study and Peter places a kiss on his little girl’s soft curls as he sets a book on the desk before them. “Alright, Addie,” he whispers. “What’s tonight’s project?”

Addie puts her small hands on the heavy tome, and gives it a pat. “Open, pease?” she asks.

Peter assents with a grin, opening the book to the index. Addie stands on her father’s legs and runs a finger down the words, stopping at the one she likes best--and the only one she recognizes, by sight: “emental!”

“Ah!” smiles Peter, “so it’s ice, this time.” Ice is still far from his forte. But he considers how much magic he has taught himself in just the effort to entertain his daughters. They do not even speak in full sentences yet, and already they have become his greatest motivation to improve.

He flips to the spell Adelaide has indicated. It is a glyph; one meant to catch passersby in a cylinder of pure ice. He has used it infrequently, but these late-night excursions into tomes of common magic are meant for experimentation. His goal is to make his daughter’s eyes light up with wonder before he sends her off to sleep.

So he builds the glyph. It is much smaller than usual, encompassing an area on the desk no wider in diameter than the bottom of a tankard. He twists the components, ordering things to go this way and that, until he thinks that it should be about right. “Hands down, please,” orders, for little fingers have no knowledge of the dangers of instant cold. So, as is tradition, she wraps both hands around her father’s right index finger, while he activates the glyph with his left hand.

He is pleased that it works, though it will need some polishing. Before them sits a rough-looking ice sculpture of two dancing figures. Addie claps her baby hands, his own pale green eyes mirrored to him in miniature as she gazes up at him in wonder. It is a look that he has been told to treasure because it will not be his for long, and so he lets it warm his heart through and through. 

Peter smiles at his little girl and strokes back her hair. He must remind himself that it is an old fear--a fear which should have died when the circles did--that quickens his pulse when he considers that one day, his children may wield magic, too.

But he will teach them to wield love, above all else.

* * *

From a rocking chair, Peter watches his wife dance around the quiet nursery with their son. Charlie went to sleep nearly half an hour ago, but he is sure Josephine is aware of that fact. 

Last week, the poor little thing had a cold. It was the first time any of their children had truly been ill, and while Peter had nearly lost his mind with worry, Josephine had stayed the voice of reason. 

She had sent the girls to stay with her parents, until she was certain it wasn’t anything lethal. The girls came back full of sugar and stories, and Peter was glad for it, but Charles had made little improvement in the interim. So, he minded the four-year-olds while Josephine saw to their little box of mucus. His job had seemed like the better end of the deal--and arguably, it was--but the girls had quickly succeeded in wearing him out.

Josephine looks tired, too. So tired; the circles under her eyes speak to it. But the gentle smile that fixes her lips and the quiet way she hums tells him that she would have this afternoon go no other way. Neither would he, thinks Peter. 

The two of them are beautiful to watch; they wear white, and they practically glow in the light of the opened balcony doors. Josephine’s hair is down and as she sways, a gentle wind picks up the sheer fabric of the curtains and the linen of her dress, making them billow, gently. Peter wonders, as he feels himself drift in and out of sleep, how this moment could possibly be real. His wife and child are utterly etherial.

“I’m so happy he’s well,” admits Josephine, pressing a kiss to Charlie’s dark hair. It is straight, like Peter’s own, and so soft.

Peter nods. “You’ve made it through a tough week.”

She smiles, moving in his direction as she gently shifts the sleeping babe in her arms, “We both have. I could not ask for a better partner in this than you, my love.” He blinks, and she is at his side, holding his hand. He blinks again, and smiles as he feels her lips on his own; soft, warm. They and the sweet smell of his son’s head are his last thoughts before he drifts off to sleep in nursery’s afternoon warmth.

* * *

 

There will be no more children. It is a concept that Josephine is not certain either of them have come to terms with, yet. But Peter holds George like the last baby that he will ever see. 

They lay, all six of them, in their bed. The girls have nestled into each of Josephine’s sides, while Charlie--long-limbed, for a three-year-old--sprawls out over both his parents legs. Nestled in his father’s arms is little Georgie. Josephine smiles as both George and Peter sleep with their mouths open. Turning her gaze to the ceiling, she smiles at the fact that she has always been struck by how very serious her husband looks while he is asleep. She notes that it is a trait their youngest son has inherited, too. Josephine is not certain who appears sillier in their slumber: the affronted-looking, chubby-cheeked infant, or the affronted-looking, baby-faced adult. She settles on the latter.

Suddenly, she feels Peter’s right hand in her left, where it sits on her pillow. She smiles at the touch, softly rubbing his fingers. She feels Peter shift, and turn to better view the baby in his arms. He squeezes her hand. “Who do you think this one will be?” he whispers.

Josephine smiles, thinking of the endless world that awaits their children. A world they have fought for. “We will have to wait and see.”

Peter draws her hand to his lips, placing a kiss to her knuckles. “There’s no one I’d rather wait with than you.”


End file.
